Elm Creek Quilts [12] The Winding Ways Quilt

by Jennifer Chiaverini

  When Easter came, Judy almost danced with excitement as Grandma led her granddaughters upstairs to her bedroom. As before, Miranda helped her lift the lid to the tapestry-covered trunk, and once more Grandma reminisced about her wedding day and told the much briefer story of the loss of her sister. Judy hung on every word, drinking in the quilts with her eyes. They seemed even more beautiful than she remembered.

  Even the youngest of the cousins recalled what Grandma had said the year before about the tulip quilt top, so no one asked who would receive it one day. Judy did not expect Grandma to choose anyone so soon, so she was caught off guard when, as they were returning the quilts to the trunk, loyal Susan piped up that Judy had already learned how to sew very well.

  Grandma’s eyebrows rose. “Sewing and embroidery are not the same as quilting,” she said, fastening the latch firmly. “Still, I must wonder how Judy managed to find time to do what you other girls did not.”

  Judy felt her cheeks grow hot. For a moment she feared her new cousins would resent her, and she almost regretted the sewing lessons she had begged from her mother. But instead of glaring angrily at her, the other girls nodded meekly up at their grandmother. Judy’s relief was short-lived, however, for she knew that next Easter, she would not be the only one of them who knew how to sew.

  Sure enough, next year all of the cousins except for the youngest had mastered basic sewing skills, even Miranda, who didn’t have to. Carrie had sewn a small doll quilt from squares of calico and glowed proudly to Grandma’s praise, although Grandma still made no promises regarding the fate of the quilt. Twelve months later, Carrie had made a second, larger quilt for her newborn brother and Susan showed off a Nine-Patch lap quilt she had made with her mother. “I’m sure one day you’ll be able to make a quilt all by yourself,” Grandma said, inspecting the stitches. “This is a fine beginning.”

  Her granddaughters exchanged looks of silent understanding: Grandma intended to keep them in suspense until one of them possessed the skills, and not just the potential, to complete their great-grandmother’s beautiful tulip quilt. They had time, years perhaps, before she would choose.

  Quilting, the cousins believed, could wait. Judy reminded them that quilting was like ballet or piano: Practice made perfect, and not one of them doubted that Grandma demanded perfection. They couldn’t put off beginning to learn skills that might take a lifetime to master, not if they wanted to call the beautiful tulip quilt their own someday.

  As the years passed, four new cousins joined their annual Easter viewings of the quilts, while the granddaughters’ interest in learning to quilt waxed and waned. Some years several cousins brought small sewing projects to demonstrate their improving skills; other times no one, not even Judy, had anything to show for the previous twelve months. Once, when Judy was thirteen, her cousin Carrie ventured a question the girls had only whispered to one another: What would Grandma do with the tulip quilt if none of her granddaughters learned how to finish it?

  As if she could not believe her ears, Grandma drew herself up, her mouth tightening. “I certainly hope it won’t come to that. I do hope at least one of you cares enough to preserve your great-grandmother’s legacy and my sister’s memory.”

  Stinging from the rebuke and reminded anew how much she longed to call the tulip quilt her own, Judy resolved to learn to quilt before another Easter came.

  Back home, having learned all she could from library books and craft kits, she asked her mother to help her find a quilting class. Within a week, Tuyet enrolled Judy in a beginner’s course at a quilt shop a half-hour drive from their home. At first the instructor was reluctant to accept a much younger student, but at Tuyet’s insistence, she allowed Judy to sit in on the first day, after which she agreed that Judy could remain in the course. When Judy proved herself an apt pupil, willing to hear criticism and never failing to participate diligently, the teacher forgot her earlier resistance and often stayed after class to help Judy master a challenging skill. By the end of the summer, Judy had completed her first bed-size sampler top, and with the help of her fellow students, she spent the last day of class layering and basting it. Her teacher showed her how to adjust the lap hoop to hold the layers snugly but not too taut, how to pop the thread through the back of the quilt and conceal the knot within the batting, and how to take small rocking stitches with her right hand while feeling beneath the quilt for the tip of the needle with her left.

  As autumn passed into winter, Judy developed a callus on her fingertip and noted with increasing delight that the stitches, which had become smaller and more precise with practice, gave her sampler new dimension, grace, and depth. After spring rains had melted the winter snows, Judy’s mother drove her to the quilt shop so her former teacher could demonstrate how to finish the quilt with a narrow, double-fold bias strip that concealed the raw edges of the quilted top. Judy stitched the last few inches of binding to the back of her quilt on the long drive to her grandmother’s house on Good Friday, tying the last knot just as they crossed the border into Ohio.

  Judy could not wait until Easter morning to unveil her masterpiece. As soon as she had hung up her jacket and properly greeted everyone, she lugged her tote bag into the living room and brought out her sampler quilt—made entirely by hand, twelve different blocks, some pieced, some appliquéd, some a little bit of both. As Grandma put on her glasses to inspect her stitches, Judy told everyone about her quilting class, how many months she had spent and spools of thread she had used up, and how she was going to put the quilt on her bed back home and sleep beneath it every night. Everyone wanted a closer look at her quilt; everyone complimented her handiwork, even the boys, even Carrie, the second most accomplished quilter of the cousins.

  Grandma was the last to speak. “Very well done,” she proclaimed, and that meant it was so. Judy had never known a prouder moment.

  That night, Judy and Susan slept on top of their sleeping bags and shared Judy’s pretty new quilt as a cover. “You’ve won the tulip quilt for sure,” said Susan.

  “I don’t think it’s a contest we can win or lose,” said Judy, afraid of letting her hopes rise too much. “Grandma never said she’d automatically give the quilt to the first granddaughter who made a full-size quilt.”

  Susan squeezed her arm fondly. “Maybe not, but you deserve it.”

  Secretly, Judy thought so, too, but she didn’t dare say so aloud. Grandma was very particular, and Judy still might not have done enough to prove herself.

  On the afternoon of Easter Sunday, the ten granddaughters followed Grandma upstairs to her bedroom. She didn’t sit on the floor anymore, but in her chair by the window and instructed Miranda and Carrie to open the chest and carefully unfold the daisy quilt. Judy savored the story of Grandma’s wedding day. Though new details emerged with each retelling, the stories had become so familiar that Judy could close her eyes and envision the celebration as clearly as if she had been among the wedding party. Then the tulip quilt came out, and as they all admired it, Judy, with a practiced quilter’s eye, imagined the crosshatches and feathered plumes that would best enhance her great-grandmother’s graceful appliqué.

  “We might as well just tuck this in Judy’s suitcase today,” said Miranda, eighteen years old and full of plans for her upcoming high school graduation. The other cousins offered teasing sighs and laments of agreement, except for Carrie. Although each of the cousins would have gladly taken the tulip quilt top home had Grandma offered it, all but Judy, Carrie, and ten-year-old Beth had long ago abandoned any hope that they would ever quilt well enough to meet their grandmother’s exacting standards. Even Carrie had brought nothing new to show how her skills had improved over the past year, and although Beth proudly showed off the Seamstress badge she had earned in Girl Scouts, she had only two crib quilts to her credit.

  “That’s unkind,” snapped Grandma, gesturing to Miranda to gather up the quilt top. Startled, Miranda roused herself and put the pretty tulips away for another year while her cousins exchanged loo
ks of astonishment. Never had their special time with Grandma ended so abruptly.

  Miranda fastened the latch, then turned to face her grandmother, clasping and unclasping her hands. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that I’m in any hurry—I mean, I know you’re going to leave the quilts in your will—”

  “Oh, my dear girl, that’s not it at all.” Grandma held out an arm to Miranda, who gratefully hurried forward to accept one of her brisk hugs. “I meant that it’s unkind to tease Judy so, after all she’s done to try to motivate the rest of you girls.”

  Susan shot Judy a look of utter bewilderment. “But Miranda wasn’t teasing. Judy’s the best quilter of all of us.”

  “I know I’m not good enough to finish your mother’s quilt yet,” said Judy, “but I’m working hard to improve, and I know I could be good enough someday.”

  “Oh, Judy.” Grandma sank back in her chair, shaking her head in dismay. “Surely you understand that my mother’s quilt has to go to one of my real granddaughters, so it can stay in the family.”

  The room went abruptly silent. From elsewhere in the house came the sound of distant laughter and the squall of a cranky baby.

  Judy’s breath constricted. Somehow she managed to push herself to her feet and leave the room.

  She couldn’t go downstairs and face the questions her unexpected appearance alone would prompt, so she flung herself on the bed in her father’s old room and stared up at the ceiling. She took deep, slow breaths and blinked away tears the moment they threatened to form. After a few minutes, she heard her cousins descending the stairs and Grandma’s slower tread following after. She waited another five minutes before sitting up and smoothing the wrinkles in her new Easter skirt.

  Determined to avoid the other granddaughters, Judy went outside to the back porch where the younger children played, but Susan sought her out. “She has a mean streak,” Susan said, her blue eyes narrowed in anger. “I don’t want her stupid quilt anymore. None of us do.”

  “Don’t. You’re making it worse.”

  Susan held out her arms and Judy let herself be embraced, resting her head on Susan’s shoulder, sick at heart. The giddy shouts and laughter of the younger children seemed suddenly remote, a pageant she could only watch and not join in, and not because she was too grown up for play.

  Susan whispered in her ear, just as when they were children with secrets to share: “I don’t care what she says. I know you’re a real cousin.”

  None of the other granddaughters said a word to Judy about their grandmother’s remark, her cool assessment of Judy’s place in the family, but Judy heard their disbelieving whispers, saw the glances of stricken sympathy. She hoped her mother did not. Tuyet knew something was wrong; she kept feeling Judy’s forehead and watched her sharply when she picked at her dinner. Judy longed to confide in her, but she could imagine how her proud, protective mother might react. In defense of her daughter, she might do or say something that would get Judy and her parents banished from the family home forever, just as she had so many years ago in Saigon.

  Judy kept silent, but she could not force her cousins to do so, and eventually word got around to her parents. Judy didn’t think anything of her aunt’s phone call until her mother and father knocked on the door to her bedroom, where she had been finishing her algebra homework. Their expressions told her that they knew everything, but still they asked for the story. Her breezy account and assurances that she had known all along that the quilt wouldn’t go to her and that it was no big deal did not convince them, but to her surprise, it was her gentle father and not her fiery mother who confronted Grandma. Tuyet held Judy wordlessly, stroking her hair, while downstairs, her father smoldered and raged on the phone.

  “A ‘real granddaughter,’ Mother? What’s that supposed to mean?” Silence. “She’s not ‘just a stepdaughter.’ I adopted her. She’s mine. I’m her father and that makes her your granddaughter, no different from the other girls.” An icy pause. “Would the adoption be more real if Judy looked more like you?” Another silence. “Oh, how very generous of you, Mother. I’m thrilled to know that if Tuyet and I have our ‘own’ daughter, she’ll be eligible.” A brief pause. “No,you listen. She’s your granddaughter as much as I am your son, and if she isn’t good enough for you, than neither am I.”

  He slammed down the phone.

  After that, Judy feared that they would never go back to Grandma and Grandpa’s house, but they did. When Christmas came, they made the long drive through the snow and everyone welcomed Judy and her mother as they always had. Judy’s father kissed his mother on the cheek in greeting as if they had never argued. Judy looked on and marveled at the adults’ capacity for pretense.

  Grandma never said a word about that Easter afternoon, not to apologize, not to explain, not to assure Judy that she was as much a member of the family as Susan and Miranda and the other cousins. It was as if they had all agreed to pretend the whole ugly scene had never happened, but Judy sensed that nothing had been resolved. Grandma still did not consider her a real and true grandchild, and her father still resented it.

  Forever after, when Easter came, Judy found ways to be too preoccupied to follow Grandma upstairs to her bedroom to see the quilts. She would be busy helping Aunt Grace prepare a special dessert, or helping Uncle Peter change a diaper. Susan was the next to drop out of the annual audience, and then, as the grandchildren grew up, formed families of their own, and began dividing their holidays between new families and old, the tradition passed into history. Emily was only a few months old when Judy’s grandmother died, having never met her newest great-grandchild. Miranda inherited the daisy quilt, as everyone had expected, and the tulip quilt went to Carrie, who sent Judy a long e-mail confessing that she had given up quilting long ago, and that she preferred to give the top to Judy, the only one of the grandchildren capable of finishing it properly. Judy was touched by the gesture but told Carrie to keep her inheritance, adding that it was fine to leave the top as it was, as they all remembered it. Leaving it unquilted was, in fact, what quilt restorers recommended for antique tops.

  Judy looked around the cornerstone patio at the women passing the candle from hand to hand, some sharing amusing tales, others confiding their most closely guarded secrets. She could imagine their disbelief and indignation if she confessed her own secret, that for most of her life, a quilt symbolized love and acceptance denied, a circle closed against her. Not until coming to Waterford and joining the local guild had she learned about the abiding friendships nurtured around the quilting frame. Only after knowing Sylvia, Gwen, and the others did understanding come like a revelation: Judy’s grandmother had never learned to quilt, or she would have finished the tulip top herself. Perhaps if she had been a quilter, she would have found it unthinkable to use a quilt as a tool of division, setting her granddaughters against one another and setting Judy apart. Perhaps if Grandma had quilted, she would have understood the necessity of contrast and value, of joining together what seemed too dissimilar to fit, and thereby creating strength and beauty and enduring bonds.

  The time to leave the protective circle at Elm Creek Manor was too quickly approaching. Nothing could replace these dear friends, their presence in her life or their place in her heart, but Judy had learned that wherever quilters were, friendship abided. Though miles would soon separate Judy from the other Elm Creek Quilters, their friendship would endure, and wherever the winding ways of her life’s path led her, there she would weave new ties, forge new bonds, and she would help her daughter to do the same.

  The Elm Creek Quilters had shown her how.

  Sylvia cut the last four pieces for Judy’s quilt, four triangular shapes with flat bases and concave sides, curving and narrowing until they met at a point. She had searched her stash for the perfect fabrics for her departing friend, silky prints with images of tortoises and cranes, symbols of the land of Judy’s birth. She chose reds and golds, Vietnamese colors of celebration, but mixed in reds and blues, the school colors for the Unive
rsity of Pennsylvania. The shifting hues marked the winding ways Judy had followed from Saigon to Elm Creek Manor to her new life in Philadelphia. For the lighter pieces, Sylvia plucked from her stash a half yard of a whimsical fabric—navy images that resembled computer circuits and diodes on a white background. For the life of her Sylvia could not remember purchasing such an odd print, but it had found its way into her stash somehow, and at last she had the perfect use for it. She smiled as she traced around her template on the wrong side of the fabric, imagining Judy’s laugh of delight when she held her quilt—or rather, her portion of a larger quilt—and interpreted the different symbols Sylvia had hidden within the scraps.

  When that day would come, Sylvia did not know, but winding paths often curved back upon themselves, and Sylvia hoped Judy would not delay her return journey too long. Though Judy must leave them, she would always have a place at Elm Creek Manor. When she returned, Sylvia would present her with her gift of friendship and show her how it fit into the greater whole.

  Sarah

  They know,” Sarah told her husband, blinking up at the ceiling in the early morning sunlight.

  Matt, already showered and almost dressed, sat on the edge of the bed to pull on his socks. “Are you sure? They’re acting perfectly normal. Normal for Elm Creek Quilters, anyway.”

  “That’s only because they don’t know that I know they know. When they’re able to show that they know, that’s when the uproar will begin.”

  Matt took a moment to puzzle out who knew what when. “We were going to tell them soon anyway.”

  “Yes, but I wanted it to be on my terms, so I could keep the chaos under control.”

  Matt grinned and bent over to kiss her on the cheek. “Hon, I think your days of keeping chaos under control are numbered. Better get used to it.”